


from the egg

by halcyonskies



Series: OTP Challenge [24]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, Gen, Kid Fic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Pern Inspired, Poor Dean, Pre-Relationship, Soul Bond, of a sort, wealthy castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8386573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyonskies/pseuds/halcyonskies
Summary: Without a doubt, this has been the best day of Dean's admittedly short life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 24th Challenge - Dragons!
> 
> just a little something i thought worth mentioning - this is obviously inspired by the dragonriders of pern series (by Anne McCaffrey), but i literally haven't read any sort of excerpt from that series since i was in gradeschool; so some elements are probably different. or maybe they aren't, and i just remembered more than i thought! either way, i consider this more of an inspired piece than anything, and i was itching to write about dragon bonds, so here you go!

Technically, Castiel shouldn’t have been allowed into the Warrens. He was a proper highborn boy, and those types were more likely to be seen up the mountain, where the houses were bigger and the streets were cleaner. Generally, it was safer for the upper class to stick to those areas, too – many lowborn folk would sooner spit in the face of a highborn than offer a respectful bow or curtsy. 

But Castiel had always been different. He was an odd one, even among his own family – kind, curious, and always eager to offer up his young lord’s allowance to those most in need of it. It wasn’t long before those in the Warrens learned to see the highborn child as one of their own, no matter that he was better dressed (and better fed) than almost all of them. Truthfully, even in spite of his own good character, most lowborns probably afforded Castiel their affections because of Mary Winchester.

Mary made her gold working in the kitchen of Cat’s Whisker – a tiny inn crammed between a lowborn smithery and an apothecary. She was known for her excellent pastry and for being unfailingly kind in a world that didn’t often smile on the lowborn living in the Warrens. She was somewhat of a pillar in the community, offering advice and comfort to anyone that came seeking it, and it never went unnoticed that she was often the voice of reason for her husband, whose temper typically got the best of him. 

John Winchester was Speaker for the Warrens. He was strong and proud and everything that a man should be – or at least, everything his father had been, and  _ his  _ father before that. When Henry Winchester passed and no one else rose up to challenge his son for the Speaker’s role, John fell into the position with all the ease of someone born for it. He was a good leader, and no one disputed that – but no one would argue that John Winchester was a difficult man to befriend. Life in the Warrens had made him jaded and cold, as so many grew to be before long, and though he was respected it couldn’t be said that he was loved. 

Mary Winchester made up for all that, and it was because of  _ her  _ that Castiel came to be accepted by the community. Where others sneered and steered clear of the little highborn in his finery, Mary set her washing aside and offered a bit of brown bread to the small boy with tears on his cheeks. 

“I got lost,” Castiel whispered into Mary’s skirts, clutching onto her apron as trustingly as he’d ever held his own Mama. “No one will tell me how to get back to Clearstone.”

“Hush, little bird,” Mary said, and bade him sit beside her while she finished up her family’s laundry. 

That was how Dean had first met the highborn. He’d toddled out of their ramshackle house looking for something sweet from her pockets, and had preoccupied himself with Castiel instead. 

“Your clothes are pretty,” Dean had said, pointing at the emblem sewn on Castiel’s breast with a grubby little finger. “What’s that mean?”

Castiel had looked down at the emblem – a dove inside a circle of poplar leaves – and replied haltingly, “It’s my family’s crest. Doesn’t . . . don’t you have one?”

Dean shook his head, a little wistfully. “Nope. I guess it’s only highborn people that have them.”

“How do you know I’m . . . highborn?” 

“‘Cause your clothes are pretty.”

It was the beginning of a friendship that would last the rest of Dean’s life. 

//

“I like your scales,” Castiel said plainly to Imrah, Mary Winchester’s dragon. He was watching the play of the afternoon sun on her hide, white scales made butter-yellow in the places where light touched. 

The dragon curled her elegant neck in a position better suited to catch the sun’s warmth, grumbling in amusement at the bald frankness of the little highborn.  _ Thank you, Castiel. I like them too. _

Dean huffed, finally settling into position on the branch he’d been scuttling up. He waited for the leaves to stop trembling before joining in the conversation, watching his own legs dangle down toward the grass.

“How come everybody wants a colorscale, anyway? Do they have special powers?”

Imrah’s forked tail flicked dangerously behind her, though her face remained placid.  _ No, Dean. Some dragons might be quicker or stronger than others, but it has nothing to do with the color of their scales. _

“Meg’s papa has a colorscale,” Castiel said. “They remind me of the enamel on my chamberpot.”

Dean nearly toppled right out of the tree for laughing, the sound of his mirth echoing across the short stretch of gorseland between the Wood and Antrum’s walls. When he saw Castiel looking up at him in confusion, he only laughed that much harder. Even Imrah couldn’t suppress a snort, long grass and weedflowers bowing low before her snout. 

_ Aephid would not take kindly to hearing that, Castiel,  _ she scolded, her tone belying any sort of true admonishment.  _ Better keep it to yourself. _

When Dean’s chuckles had faded back into the ambient rustle of leaves overhead, he said, “I want a brownscale, like Kyrt.”

Kyrt was his father’s dragon, and in the awestruck eyes of John Winchester’s son, there was no other dragon that could match him. He was thick-bodied and much larger than Imrah, and his golden eyes could spear a flea in the grass. He rarely spoke, even to John himself, and his stony silence only made him that much more mysterious to Dean. He believed anyone would be lucky to have a dragon like Kyrt.

Only, Castiel always said he wanted a dragon like Ellen’s – Qasha, a tanscale, and nearly as big as Kyrt. Qasha was quiet, gentle, and more of a loner than the rest of the lowborn dragons. He hardly ever ventured beyond the Dragon Keep, preferring to stick to a sun-warmed rock or a soft spot of dirt, away from anyone else. Dean had never seen Qasha so much as snap at somebody, and while that made for peaceful coexistence in the Warrens, it certainly wasn’t very exciting. 

“I want a nice dragon,” Castiel said, predictably. It was what he always said.

_ Dragons are a race not often inclined towards kindness, little one,  _ Imrah cautioned.  _ We pick our people from the egg. When your scalelet chooses you, it will be because you come together like earth and sky. _

“So maybe he  _ will  _ be nice,” Dean quipped, not much liking the disappointment that briefly overtook his friend’s features. 

“Or she.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Or  _ she.  _ The point is, if your dragon matches you, then it’s probably going to be nice. You’re nice.”

“I am?”

“‘Course. The nicest.”

Castiel smiled, and it was like the first breath of spring after a coldsnap winter. For a moment Dean felt a little frozen himself, his muscles so still that he might have been part of the tree. His insides flushed hot-cool, and the sensation was so disconcerting that at once he distracted himself by shaking leaves down onto Castiel’s head.

“Dean!”

Imrah looked on with her knowing snowmelt eyes, the leather of her wings stretching out to drink the sun. 

//

Hatching Day was about the only day where status amounted to nothing. The children that had come of age all traveled to the same Hatching Cave, regardless of where they laid their heads at night. No one squabbled, or even spoke really, too anxious of what was to come to engage in anything that might get them sent home.

Dean’s mother had laid out his best homespuns for today, and though they itched and pinched something fierce, he’d bowed to her wishes and worn them. That today was his very first (and hopefully, last) Hatching Day made him more amenable to things he might have made a fuss about before, including wearing uncomfortable clothes. He supposed if there was ever going to be a day where he should look his best, today should be it.

Even in his highborn finery, Castiel couldn’t say that he looked  _ his  _ best. His face was like watered milk, and his eyes reminded Dean of a skittish fawn’s, wide and white around the edges. He’d already thrown up once this morning for all his nerves, and even now his hands trembled at his sides. 

Today was Castiel’s _third_ Hatching Day. 

Dean didn’t know what the highborn in Clearstone thought of Castiel remaining Unpaired, but he knew that everyone in the Warrens pitied him for it. Maybe it was trickier to be chosen by a dragon when you were highborn, but everyone Dean knew had only had to go through one Hatching Day before they’d been Paired. Even Alastair – probably the meanest little tack of a boy that Dean had ever known – who didn’t have  _ any  _ friends, had been Paired on his very first Hatching Day.

Dean couldn’t understand it. Cas was his closest friend and even besides that, he was a good person. He hardly ever lied, he gave freely of his pocket money, and he helped Mama with the chores when Dean and Sam were one foot out the door with impatience. He was pretty, and he smelled nice, and he smiled at Dean like Dean was a whole palace full of almond cake. If anybody deserved a dragon to choose him, it was Castiel.

Uncaring of who might be looking, Dean reached for Cas’ hand.

“I bet you my entire riverstone collection that you’ll be Paired today,” he whispered.

Castiel – who coveted those stones more than a cat craved a plump woodpidgeon – didn’t even perk up. He just squeezed Dean’s hand until the bones threatened to crack. No doubt he was thinking about how many times he  _ hadn’t  _ been chosen, and how, if he had to go through  _ another  _ Hatching Day, he’d be almost too old to be Paired at all. 

“Well, I won’t be Paired if you won’t,” Dean added, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt just saying the words. “We can get our dragons together, or not at all.”

Finally Cas made a sound, and even if it was just to snort derisively, Dean was glad for it. “You can’t stop a dragon from choosing you, Dean.”

“Well, I bet I could if I really wanted to.”

Castiel just shook his head, and even if he never stopped squeezing Dean’s hand fit to burst the skin, at least he looked a little calmer. They were almost to the Hatching Cave now, that secluded hollow in the mountainside where the females went to brood. It took nearly two hours to travel there by foot, and since none of them had a dragon to ride, the journey had seemed to go on forever.

Atop his tanscale, Joshua called for them to pick up their pace, and like a herd of nervous sheep, they obeyed.

The scent of stone and heat fell over them like a smothering blanket as they passed through the darkened mouth of the Hatching Cave. Sand crunched underfoot, and firelight painted the walls in mottled orange-gray. It seemed truly wondrous to Dean, who had been listening to stories of Hatching Day since he was old enough to understand them. He hardly noticed that Castiel seemed barely half as reverent, gone back to gripping the blood out of Dean’s hand now that they were inside. 

“I realize that I don’t have to explain to you how this works,” Joshua was saying, having slid from his dragon’s back and slipped inside the hatchery without him. “But I want all of you to remember one very important thing – the dragon chooses  _ you.  _ Being Paired with any dragon is an honor and privilege, no matter the color of their scales. And if one of you happens to leave today without a dragon–” here Joshua’s eyes lingered the longest on Cas, who was the only one out of their group that had been through more than one Hatching Day “–that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It just means your dragon hasn’t been born yet.”

“C’mon, Cas,” Dean murmured when Joshua had finished and the others were scurrying in all directions. “We can look together.”

“Okay, Dean.”

Dragon’s eggs were large things. They were nearly as hard as stone and looked the part, blending so seamlessly into the cave walls and floor that it was hard to tell you were looking at an egg until you were almost right beside it. The easiest tells were the large pyres the females had constructed, interspersed throughout the hatchery to keep all the eggs just this edge of roasting. Grouped around each pyre were clutches of eggs, three or four apiece, and it was to these that the children flocked, hoping for a telltale twitch that might signify the hatching of their very own dragon. 

Every so often there came the cry of some lucky child who had been chosen by their dragon, until most of them had been Paired and there were only a few stragglers left. Dean couldn’t help but look back at those ones, those with sticky eggshell on their hands and a still-wet hatchling nuzzling up under their arm. Among the wash of whites and browns that were most common among dragons, there were one or two colorscales, all of them Paired with a child that couldn’t look prouder if they tried. 

“Dean,” Castiel whispered eventually, when the hour was almost up and they were the last ones remaining without a dragon. “Dean, I don’t think our dragons are here.”

He sounded so resigned, and even Dean’s own overwhelming disappointment couldn’t dampen how annoyed he was that Cas  _ still  _ hadn’t been picked. 

“Maybe. There’s still a few we haven’t looked at yet.”

A few of those eggs they hadn’t yet seen were tucked in the curl of a female’s tail. She was a fearsome yellowscale, and Dean hadn’t been able to bring himself to approach her. But desperation lent him enough courage to do so now, dragging Castiel along behind him while the rest of their group looked on in trepidation. 

_ Don’t mind Ylla, children,  _ rasped an old, wrinkled brownscale.  _ This is her first clutch, not yet a week old. She is possessive still.  _

Dean thought she must be one of the Den Mothers – a female whose person had passed, who had decided to spend the rest of her days looking after the Hatching Cave and the new brooding mothers. Tucked comfortably atop one of the cave’s natural shelves, she observed them with warm golden-brown eyes. 

The yellowscale – Ylla – tossed her head a little haughtily, drawing her tail back.  _ Look if you must,  _ she said.  _ Though I doubt any of my scalelings will choose the likes of you. _

“Just ignore her, Cas. C’mon, let’s see if our dragons are here.”

There were four eggs in Ylla’s clutch. It was the third of them that hatched, and it did not hatch for Dean. 

Ylla sniffed disdainfully, muttering something about how there was no accounting for taste, but Castiel showed no signs of hearing her. His eyes were so big and shocked, blue as the sky, shining with surprised, joyful tears. He held the hatchling like it was liable to shatter apart if he gripped it too tight. 

The hatchling was beautiful, and Dean didn’t feel any qualms about thinking it. It shone black as deep night, a shimmer on its scales like sunlight over water. Dean couldn’t remember if he’d ever even seen a blackscale before, but there it was, tottering about on soft, stubby claws and huddling against Castiel like he was the last safe place.

For one awful, flushed-warm moment, Dean felt an insidious little seed of bitter envy try to take root inside of him. That he was still standing here on his first Hatching Day without a dragon, that he was going to be going home to wait another year before getting to try again . . . And then Castiel turned to him, turned to Dean like Dean was the only other boy in the room, and smiled. 

“I’m Paired, Dean! See, see him?”

The biting jealousy eased at once, and Dean found it was not so difficult to return his friend’s smile. “I see him, Cas. What’s his name?”

They whispered to each other for a few moments, and then Castiel replied, “His name is Aerys.”

By then Joshua was looking ready to call them back, and Dean resigned himself for the next year’s wait. But Castiel grabbed his arm before he could return to the group. “Dean, you haven’t been Paired yet.”

“There’s always next year,” Dean pointed out, trying and failing to hide the disappointment in his voice. “I think it’s time to go now, anyway.”

“No.” There was a look on Cas’ face like stone, like he could stand there, unmoved, until time eroded him away. His eyes were as flinty as Dean had ever seen, and he tilted his chin up in a show of defiance when Dean opened his mouth to argue.  _ “No,  _ Dean. You said we’d both be Paired today. We can’t leave until we look at  _ all  _ the eggs.”

There were a scarce few they hadn’t bothered with yet, those eggs lying alone in the more darkened corners of the hatchery, those that hadn’t hatched for a child for years at a time. If that was what Dean had left to pick from, he didn’t think there was much hope.

“Boys, it’s time to head back,” Joshua said as he picked his way toward them. Eyeing the dragon in Castiel’s arms, a smile poked through his lips. “Congratulations, Castiel. He’s fine.”

“Joshua, we can’t go yet. Dean hasn’t been Paired.”

Their teacher sighed, sympathy softening his eyes. “Yes, I realize that. He’ll just have to wait until next year, and try again.”

“But he hasn’t seen all the eggs yet!”

“Castiel–”

_ Take the others back to Antrum, little teacher,  _ spoke the Den Mother that had teased Ylla before, stretching out her scarred brown neck.  _ I will accompany them back to their home when they have been satisfied.  _

Joshua – who had recently passed his sixty-eighth summer and did not look happy to be called ‘little teacher’ – started to shake his head, reluctant to accept the Den Mother’s offer. “It’s a long way, Raeha. And they’re my responsibility–”

_ It is not as if my bones are crumbling to dust just yet.  _ Raeha’s voice was dry.  _ Take the childen and go, Joshua. _

Their teacher grumbled and groused about being told what he should do, but leave he did, the children heading back to Antrum with their new hatchlings in hand. Raeha unwound herself from her perch and shook the stiffness from her old joints, leading the way to the corners they hadn’t yet checked. 

_ Some of these eggs have been here for years,  _ she explained, waiting patiently as Dean stopped and waited before each one.  _ Those two are from Bula’s third clutch  _ –  _ she’s had another since then, if I recall. This is one of Nadrid’s, the only one she’s ever laid that didn’t choose a child by Hatching Day. _

It continued like that, Raeha explaining about the eggs, and Dean’s hope slipping further away every time an egg remained whole and unbroken before him. Castiel and the newly-hatched Aerys stood by him, both looking on with the same wide blue eyes. 

“Cas, please. Let’s just go home,” Dean begged a few minutes later. There weren’t many eggs to choose from in the first place, and he’d seen nearly all of them now. Embarrassment and disappointment slinked around in his stomach like worms, making him feel sick, and he didn’t think he’d ever felt so small in his life. Now he could understand why Castiel had looked so despondent before.

“There’s still one left,” Castiel said, stubborn as a cat, and pointed to the final egg resting on its nest of stones. 

Frustrated, Dean reached out and snatched it up. The shell was hard and smooth, gray and speckled with bits of darker brown.

“See? Nothing. I’m not gonna be Paired this year, Cas!”

The egg  _ moved  _ in Dean’s hands.

He nearly dropped it.

“Dean!”

_ Hatching, hatching,  _ Aerys chirped.

And it was. Dean almost didn’t believe it, but it was. He hastily set the thing down, watching on in disbelief as the first hairline cracks appeared in the eggshell. When the first bit of dragon snout poked out of the egg, pale as milk, Dean nearly fell down on his rear. 

She – and it was a she, a fact which Dean instinctively knew and did not question – emerged fully from her egg only moments later, tiny limbs trembling, scales glistening in the firelight. At first Dean thought she was a whitescale, like Imrah. But closer inspection revealed a gleam to her scales that was apart from the birthing fluid, shifting and thick, like the shimmer of sunlight on a sword. 

Dean’s dragon was a silverscale.

_ Ah, one of Jekla’s. She hasn’t laid in years, of course  _ –  _ she’s a Den Mother, now.  _

Dean barely heard Raeha’s words, his attention wholly captured by the dragon that had  _ chosen  _ him. She huddled up against his knees, blinking up at him with hazy eyes nearly colorless, like the moon in center sky. At his side, Cas gave his shoulder a pointed nudge.

“Listen to her, Dean. What’s her name?”

The feeling of the hatchling-bond was strange and wonderful, unfolding between them as easy as petals opening up for the sun. Suddenly, Dean was not quite alone in his head. Suddenly, it was as if he never was.

“What’s your name?” Dean whispered to her, soft.

_ Narha,  _ his dragon whispered back to him.

“See?” Castiel exclaimed later, when they were making the slow trek back to Antrum atop Raeha’s back. “It’s just like you said. Together, or not at all.”


End file.
